Rain has come!
We are finally out of the dry season and the sweet rain clouds have now replaced the mega dust cloud that plagued me for a good 2 and a half months. The Harmattan season(dry), in my mind, has no good qualities what-so-ever. It was dry and dusty and hot hot hot. Not even the very short 2 weeks where it was actually pleasantly chilly at night and i did not need a fan can redeem it. It was stupid.
Well I feel better. Its good to vent, huh? Anywho, I am on a break from school right now. Im not sure why but the students have break the entire month of February and i don't have to teach the older students like i thought i did. So yay, mini-vacay! The first week was great, I started this new fitness video program i got from a friend called P90X and was happy to have the free time to begin a steady regime. it felt pretty great exercising and biking with no other commitments needed of me. And then (but of course!) disaster strikes. MALARIA. EEK! Well… it was never a confirmed diagnosis by the Peace Corps medical officer because i did a shoddy job of sending in my blood work. It did make for an interesting afternoon of trying to stab myself with a needle and make some messy blood slides, the other PCV's who were around got a kick out of it (all out of love, of course). But It was pretty much the crappiest i have ever felt over a 5 day period. It started with fever and the chills and then the aches and pains and constant headaches. At first i thought it might be just a bad case of the flu, which i thought was weird because i have gotten 2 flu shots within the past 8 months. By the 4th day when my fever shot up to around 104F i thought it would be a good idea to call the med officer and take my anti-malarial's. We are given malaria prophylaxis to take while here but i am on the daily dosage and, to be honest, i was not very good at taking mine everyday. I know, I know. It was pretty stupid. but I am better now and have switched to the weekly prophylaxis just to be safe. The bad thing about the weekly ones though is that it gives you these crazy lucid dreams. Which are scary but eh, better than having malaria again, right? The anti-malarial's are what we take if we think we might have contracted malaria and within 2 days of taking it i was already feeling a whole lot better. Its sad to think of, but most of the ghanaians here just live with malaria until it goes out of their system. It is not the easiest to get or afford anti-malarial medication. When someone contracts malaria, and it is not treated, they have these "flare-ups" where every other day or couple of days the fever shoots up and you suffer from headaches and achy muscles and joints. I cant imagine going on months with an illness like that. It totally drains all of the energy out of you.But the illness is gone and I think I am back to 100% :)
During the break I was also able to venture down south for valentines weekend and stay at a small resort like place along the volta river. It was a nice little retreat where we could relax, swim and enjoy the quiet. The hustle and bustle of traveling and sometimes even walking around your own village can be taxing when you are treated like some Zoo attraction. When i first got to site, I used to jog around campus and do workouts on the college field down the road from my house but that quickly halted when kids would just stare at me or scream "OBRUNI!" at me as loud as they could until i would get fed up and head back home. Older ghanaians are great to interact with and share things with but the kids here are just shameless. They will just sit there and shout at you as long as they can or come up to you and say something along the lines of " give me money" or " obruni, buy me this". I know that they are not totally to blame. I have to blame the stupid foreigners who come over for short periods of time and just throw money around to villages and communities and think they are "making a difference". Good intentions do not always correlate with good executions. Its just frustrating at times when you are trying to integrate with your village but realize sooner rather than later that you have been pinned "the rich white lady" who can solve all their problems. But that is why i have come, right? Im going to squash those stereotypes and build strong lasting relationships here, Damnit!
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